Health Law

Guiding a Healthcare Network’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Mass General Brigham General Counsel Laura S. Peabody (’83) helps keep patients and providers safe.

But she can barely remember what she did before March 2020 when her team kicked into high gear to help the provider network prepare for the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I have the most interesting job in the world, and I have no memory of pre-COVID,” she says, speaking hyperbolically.

In fact, Peabody helped oversee the system’s transition from one chief executive officer to another, advocate against a ballot initiative that would have mandated a certain nurse-to-patient ratio, and helped steer the organization’s rebranding from Partners HealthCare to Mass General Brigham. But even those high-profile matters pale in comparison to the unprecedented actions she helped direct in response to the pandemic, including: setting up a field hospital in the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, arranging hotel stays for front-line workers who feared infecting their families, and passing state legislation that conferred immunity on healthcare workers providing care during the pandemic.

“March through June is pretty much a blur,” Peabody says. “It was basically one long day—really intense, really stressful, and really important because people’s lives were at stake. We were very focused on taking care of our patients and our workforce.”

Peabody was drawn to healthcare law because of the fast-paced, diverse nature of the practice. But she didn’t set out to be a healthcare lawyer, or even a lawyer at all. Instead, the New York native wanted to be a geneticist, thanks to “a great bio teacher in high school.”

Instead, after graduating from Binghamton University, where she studied biopsychology, Peabody took a year off to work at an art gallery in New York City. Then, she enrolled at Boston University School of Law.

“My favorite uncle was a lawyer,” she says. “I felt we thought the same way—analytical, maybe somewhat argumentative.”

At BU Law, one of her favorite classes was Contracts with the late John P. (Jack) Dawson, a long-time visiting professor.

“Jack Dawson was the most wonderful professor I ever had,” she remembers. “I just loved the way he thought about problems from so many different angles. I loved contracts and still do.”

One lesson she carried with her from Dawson’s class was about “consideration,” or the requirement in a contract that both parties obtain something from a deal.

“He used to say that consideration for a contract could be a piece of lint in your pocket,” she says. “You have to articulate it, but it could be something that small that’s of value to somebody else.”

Peabody also took a class on sports law at Boston College Law School where she met her future husband, Robert Peabody. In 1983, the couple moved to New York where Peabody worked as a litigator for a few years. Then, she and Robert left their jobs to travel around the world for six months.

“In those days, you could get an around-the-world ticket that was good for a year, as long as you kept going in the same direction,” she explains. “We chose west because the jet lag is easier traveling that way.”

When they returned from the trip—highlights included climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and hiking the Great Wall of China—Peabody applied for a spot in the litigation practice at Choate, Hall & Stewart in Boston. She didn’t get that job but—after a quick primer with BU Law Professor Emerita Frances H. Miller, an expert on American health law—she did get another in the firm’s healthcare law group.

The move proved fortuitous.

“I loved my healthcare clients,” she says. “It became very attractive for me to stay in that field.”

Eventually, Peabody moved to in-house roles, including as deputy general counsel at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, and, in 2005, as general counsel at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, where she was hired by then-CEO Charlie Baker, now the governor of Massachusetts. After serving as chief legal officer of Northwell Health in New York for four years, she returned to Massachusetts in 2017 to take the top legal role at Mass General Brigham.

Almost everything Peabody’s team did previously has taken a backseat to the COVID-19 response—“Everybody really rolled up their sleeves and pitched in,” she says—and Mass General Brigham is now preparing for the possibility of a second surge in cases.

But the daily work of overseeing such a large healthcare organization continues. In addition to managing Mass General Brigham’s legal work—including litigation, real estate, labor and employment, corporate transactions and healthcare regulatory matters—Peabody also leads the network’s relationships with the city, state, and federal government.

She says she loves the complexity and varied nature of her job and being part of the “mission-driven” work of healthcare providers. I love facilitating the work that doctors and scientists do,” she says.